


then I will stay here with you

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [88]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 18:19:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15200660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: In April 1779, as Jamie builds their new home on Fraser's Ridge, the Frasers reflect on what would have happened had Claire refused to go through the stones right before Culloden





	then I will stay here with you

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/175610703312/what-do-you-think-would-have-happened-if-claire) on tumblr

_April 16, 1779_

“Are ye well, Claire?”

I blinked harshly, startled – then turned to smile at Jamie as he settled beside me in the clearing that was to become our new dooryard.

“I am – I don’t know where I was, just now. Sorry.”

Jamie made a Scottish noise at the back of his throat, digging around in his sporran. He crossed his legs, bare knees knobby and scarred, the worn kilt riding up on his thighs, just enough to reveal the edge of the terrible bayonet scar. The living legacy of –

“Culloden. Thirty-three years.” Jamie sighed and handed me a piece of the venison jerky the Beardsleys had gifted us a few days prior. “That’s what’s been on my mind today. Did ye even remember?”

I chewed on the edge of my piece – larger than his own, I noticed – reflecting as the flavors of smoke and sage flooded my nose. “I did.”

For a while we sat there, enjoying our snack, watching the spring sunlight filter through the tall pines.

But all I could see was the stones of Craigh Na Dun, and the unshed tears in Jamie’s eyes as he kissed me for the last time.

“I have wondered,” I said at length, “what would have happened had I not been pregnant with Bree.”

“Ye mean – if ye had stayed wi’ me to fight?” His hand – the one that Black Jack Randall had so cruelly maimed at Wentworth Prison, the one I had so gently operated on both at the Abbey in France and two years prior at Saratoga – gently rested on my knee. “Had ye acted on yer vow to die wi’ me, at my side?”

“I still want to do that, you know,” I retorted. “Die with you, at your side.”

“But Sassenach – that will be years yet, preferably when we’re in bed and right after we’ve lain together. No,” he sighed. “What ye mean is, ye wanted to die wi’ me on that moor. To be wi’ me, and Murtagh.”

“I’m fast – you know I would have – ”

“No, Claire.” Now he squeezed my knee. “No. Ye wouldna have survived that first charge. _I_ barely survived that – that foolhardy dash to the English lines. Men dropped around me – their faces and arms and legs blown to pieces. We were using swords to fight muskets and cannons.”

He licked his lips, gaze unfocused. “Had ye been there wi’ me – I would have died. Looking out for ye – or sheltering ye. Ye’re a braw woman, Claire – but ye can barely lift my sword.”

Now I rested my hand over his. Automatically our fingers laced together – a bit awkward now, with his missing finger, but still so very close.

“I know that it wouldn’t have happened, Jamie. I know that it’s a miracle you survived – and that my chances would have been small. But do you understand why I wonder, sometimes?”

“I do – but Claire, ye were there at Saratoga. Ye saved me from those harpies trying to pick my bones before I was even deid. That was terrible – but it was _nothing_ compared to that day. _Nothing_.”

I leaned to rest my chin on his shoulder, nodding.

Angry at having lost all those years.

“I wish I could have been there with you, so that I could have tended you afterwards.”

He shifted to kiss my forehead. “Jenny did a fine job. And ye were there for me, after Saratoga. Mended my broken bits again. Ye _were_ there for me, wi’ me, that time. Dinna forget that.”

“I won’t,” I sighed. “I couldn’t.”

We watched a chipmunk dart across the clearing, explore up and down the pile of logs Jamie had felled the previous day, chittering.

“Ye ken what was the biggest difference for me, at Saratoga?” His voice delightfully rumbled in his chest, comfort against my cheeks.

“Tell me.”

Now his arm snaked around my back, fingers anchored on the fabric at my sides. “I kent I fought on the winning side of history, of course. But this time…Claire, this time I fought because I wanted to _live_. To come back to ye, to take ye back here to our home.”

Another chipmunk scampered to the wood pile and disappeared into a crevice.

“That time – that morning – I fought because wi’out ye, I wanted to die.”

I wrapped my arms around him then, pushed his sweaty brow into the curve of my neck, held him.

The fresh fragrance of the pines surrounded us, sheltered from the world.


End file.
